


Shards of Shattered Glass

by AristocatSlippers



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Gen, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 11:05:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13234356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AristocatSlippers/pseuds/AristocatSlippers
Summary: It's a warm summer day, just a few months after Takashi came to live in the Fujiwara household when shattered glass reminds him of the places he'd lived before.





	Shards of Shattered Glass

Touko always hangs the laundry on warm, sunny days. She always sings as she clips sheets to the line, stopping to talk to the old crow that hangs around her outside in the yard. It is one of Takashi’s quieter pleasures to leave the window open and listen to and watch her as he does the dishes after dinner. Sometimes, often, the white crow is there too, although Touko never notices it, it always stays by the side of her friend. He has, of course, learned that the crow is a spirit. He once saw it take the form of a young woman with black hair and a pure white dress, milky white skin and dark eyes. Like him, she simply sits watching Touko with a fond smile as she pets the crow. Takashi’s mind always seems to wander when he watches the spirit, he wonders her name. Or if when he dies, will he become a spirit like her? He’s always seen many animal spirits, but come to think of it, never people. Never people, in a strange way, he’s glad for it.

Scrubbing the last dish clean, he gently places it on the drying rack. Picking up a tea towel and a plate, he starts to dry and stack them. Touko’s singing voice is old and wavering, but it fills the air around him and it doesn’t crack. It is high and sweet and calming. He has never heard the spirit sing before - not in the form of the young girl that it takes once again, maybe it knows he’s watching this time around - today, however, her voice sounds in a low hum, a melody that quietly runs underneath the familiar one. Takashi smiles for the quiet peacefulness that they unknowingly provide him with, absently letting his hands finish the chore. The counter is cluttered with the day’s plates and bowls and his arms are filled with glasses to put away in the cupboard.

Takashi startles, loud bang ringing in his ears. He jumps in surprise, glasses dropping from his arms.

They hit the ground, smashing and shattering everywhere. Shards spray up at him, tearing at his arms, thrown up in front of his face to protect it. He can’t help that it feels unsettlingly familiar, that he stumbles backwards at the sight of glass broken in front of his feet, that all the blood drains from his face. It reminds him of smashed bottles, not too uncommon in certain places of his childhood. Places that were never pleasant…

He wants to hide and disappear with the spirit that follows Touko to the doorway. Shigeru comes up behind her to investigate the commotion, footsteps like cracks of thunder to Takashi. Both are quiet, staring at him shaking on the floor and surrounded by glass. He wants to know if they’ll get mad, like other people have in the past. He wouldn’t blame them; he never blames them. His mouth opens but the words won’t come out of his mouth so he shuts it again.

Touko looks on at him in worry, he can see it painted in the creases of her forehead. He can see it on Shigeru’s face too.

“Takashi-kun, what happened? Are you okay?”

He doesn’t answer her, distracted by watching their eyes flicker between his arms and clothes and the shards surrounding him. When he looks down he sees the bleeding scratches that cover his arms and that half his clothes are ripped and torn.

“Takashi?” she asks again, stepping towards him, hand outstretched to him to help him up.

The hand doesn’t seem that way to Takashi, he keeps thinking of something different that a hand can do. He flinches as it comes closer to him. It makes him panic, not on purpose, but it terrifies him anyway. He scrambles up off the ground, runs in the opposite direction from them. They follow him, he can hear their footsteps even over the pounding of his own. 

“Takashi, don’t run away!” Shigeru calls behind him.

He ignores both of them, turning a corner blindly on to an empty street. He’s always been a fast runner, always needed to be, he quickly finds that the sound of their footsteps behind him grow quieter. Fading as he gets further away from them. He’s vaguely aware of the yokai behind him, the white crow following him for whatever reason that he can’t name. He wishes that it would go away, leave him alone so that then he can be safe. 

He keeps running, away from it and toward the forests paths that he walks with Sensei, not that they’ve ever been safe but he doesn’t pay any attention to where he’s going. Just somewhere that there are no people. The shade of the trees is cold, the ground uneven with tree roots and he has to weave between the thick foliage and brown trunks of trees. But the only signs of life are tweeting birds and rustling leaves and chirping crickets. No people… no people.

The tears falling from his eyes only come to mind when they blur his vision and he can no longer see where he’s going, doesn’t know where he can put his feet in the middle of the forest when tears distort everything. Takashi rubs at his eyes, not running anymore, just walking and letting his breathing calm down. Attempting to, even though his panting doesn’t slow down necessarily, instead becoming sobs that tear and claw at his chest, ripping away all of his oxygen.

They only stop as he stands on a protruding root, ankle twisting in a strange direction. It hurts and sends him slipping forward, he’s too slow to catch himself or do anything to change the direction that he falls in. His head spins on impact with the ground, throbbing with pain. He doesn’t try to get up afterwards, Takashi finds it easier to just close his eyes and block out the pain that way. He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but he’s tired, so tired. It’d be okay if he just slept, there are no people around - the only yokai following him is the crow spirit anyway, right? He drifts off completely with that thought in his mind.

*  
The air has cooled by the time he wakes up, though it still holds some of the summer’s heat. Takashi sits up, dull ache still in his ankle and his head but not quite so painful anymore. When he holds up his arm to block the light, he notices the bandages wrapped around both of his arms. He didn’t clean up his arms, he knows that, he’d slipped and just let himself fall asleep before he could have. They sting slightly when he rubs at them, he decides to ignore the itchy roughness of the bandages and leave his arms alone.

Misuzu’s deep voice grumbles nearby, “Ahh, Natsume-dono, you’re awake.”

He nods, “Yes Misuzu.”

Glancing around and seeing the Chuukyuu drinking like usual and the kappa not far off, he realises that the yokai have taken him to Yatsuhara. Hinoe stares at him chidingly as he fiddles with the bandages, puffing smoke from her favourite pipe, he figures that she must have been where they came from. The crow sits next to her, still watching him.

“How did I get here, Misuzu?”

“The crow brought you here,” Misuzu tells him, “Or more, brought me to you and I carried you here.”  
  
“Thank you, Misuzu.” 

Misuzu scoffs quietly, muttering something along the lines of Natsume not needing to thank him, given that his name was still in the Book of Friends anyway. He doesn’t really think that that matters, it was still kind.

Takashi turns to face the crow, “Thank you, little crow,” he says to it. 

It smiles but doesn’t speak back to him. Takashi half wishes she would, curious, perhaps, as to why it would help him. After all, the majority of spirits tried to kill him. Although, he already knew this one to be kinder than that.

Hinoe replies for her, “She can’t speak, you know, crows can only sing. But I get the feeling that she wants to say you’re welcome.”

He bows his head slightly, looking down at the ground, “Thank you for bandaging up my arms, Hinoe. I think I need to go back home now though. Touko-san and Shigeru-san will be worrying about me.”

Both yokai shake their heads at him, he doesn’t understand why. Not until he pushes himself up with his elbows and tries to put weight on his right ankle. It won’t support his weight at all, he winces and decides to sit back down in the grass.

“You sprained your ankle. You won’t be walking anywhere for a while and Misuzu can’t very well fly you back there without someone seeing. And knowing you, you wouldn’t be very comfortable with that.” Hinoe states it firmly, she leaves no room for his stubborn protests.

“Um, how am I supposed to get home then?” he asks with slight disbelief.

She stares at his face with furrowed brows for a moment, sighing irritably, “Fine, I’ll go find something to get the swelling down, stay there until I come back.”

He complies quietly, grateful that she’s even willing to help him.

“I’ll keep an eye on him, Hinoe. I’ll do a much better job than that lousy bodyguard of his ever does.” Misuzu reassures her.

Scowling, Takashi lets the insult to Sensei go. The sun is slowly setting above the trees, there’s nothing else for him to really do but watch it as the sky changes colours, blue melding into purples, pinks, oranges and reds. It’s pretty, but he wants to go home. More than anything, he wants to go home.

“Natsume! Where did you run off to?”

It’s Nishimura that calls out his name, searching for him.Takashi would recognise his most energetic friend’s voice anywhere. Of course, he thinks, Touko-san and Shigeru-san would ask his friends to help look for him. He’s caused so much trouble, he shouldn’t have run away, he didn’t even have a reason to run away. Kind, the Fujiwaras were kind. He breathes out a deep breath, he doesn’t need to ever be scared of them - because they’re kind. Two sets of footsteps wander a little closer to him, voices growing a little louder. (Kitamoto is looking with him, he realises.)

“I’m here!” he shouts back, hopes that they can hear them.

Quietly, what qualifies as quiet for Nishimura anyway, Takashi hears Nishimura whisper to Kitamoto, “Did you just hear that? I swear I heard Natsume!”

Kitamoto murmurs back, “Yeah I did, now if you just shush we might hear him again.”

“Nishimura, Kitamoto, in the clearing!” Takashi tells them, hopefully they’ll hurry up. He tugs the sleeves of his shirt over the bandages to hide them, they’d ask where they came from otherwise.

Seconds later, Takashi swears that it’s only seconds, the two boys appear in front of him, standing at the edge of the clearing. When he spots him, Kitamoto’s figure visibly crumples with relief. Nishimura tackles him in a worried hug. Takashi hesitantly returns it for the moment that it lasts until Nishimura moves back, breaking contact. And Nishimura, of all people, starts to lecture him… He expected it to come from Kitamoto more than him.

“Do you want to tell us why you ran off stupidly, Natsume? Everyone was worried,” he glares at Takashi with his hands on his hips.

Takashi swallows, shifts his eyes away slightly, “Not… not really. I’m sorry Nishimura, Kitamoto, I didn’t mean to worry you guys.”

Nishimura’s expression softens and his tone loses much of its earlier sharpness, “We know you didn’t mean to worry us. However, we’re your friends, and that’s what friends do.”

Kitamoto is far quieter when he chastises him, “It’s not a good idea to go running off, you know. But if you don’t want to tell us why, that’s fine. If you do want to though, you can rely on us,” he jabs his own chest with his thumb, “okay?”

Takashi nods, conceding and deciding to confide in them, (he decided to trust them a while ago anyway, didn’t he?) “I didn’t… exactly have the best childhood? Before I came to live with the Fujiwaras anyway…”

Both of his friends listen to his timid explanation with understanding, “I dropped some glasses and they shattered everywhere… It kind of reminded me of that, I guess. I got scared and ran away before I could think.”

Suddenly, Nishimura is hugging him again and Kitamoto is too, though neither of them say anything. Takashi’s grateful for that, he doesn’t know how he’d respond if they did. He knows the yokai are still around too, Misuzu still keeps an idle, cursory eye on them, but it’s more his ears that concerns Takashi. He tries not to let his face show it when Misuzu speaks.

“I think you’re doing much better than that childhood now, Natsume-dono.” The yokai casts a glance back in the direction of Takashi’s home, “You should get them to take you home now. I’ll tell Hinoe where you’ve gone.”

He nods subtly at Misuzu in acknowledgement. After another minute, Nishimura and Kitamoto stand up, Takashi looks up at them.

“Alright then, let’s go home,” Kitamoto all but orders them. He offers a hand to Takashi, brows furrowing when he doesn’t take it, “Natsume, if you’ve stayed out here this long because you were lost, you know we know the way back right?”

Takashi squirms just a little under his gaze, “Ahh it’s not that, I sprained my ankle. I can’t walk on it.”

Without saying a word, Nishimura squats down and Kitamoto slings Takashi’s right arm over his own shoulder to help him up. Bewildered, Takashi lets him guide him to Nishimura. He starts to protest when he realises that Nishimura is planning to carry him home, on his back. But any and all complaints die on his tongue when both make it clear that neither of them will listen. Arms firmly looped around his neck, Nishimura straightens with Takashi on his back, readjusts him slightly so that they can be more comfortable. Setting off, Kitamoto walks ahead of them a small way down the path, it feels as if he’s checking for any danger to Takashi. Though it feels absurd, even if there was any, it isn’t the kind that he’d be able to see. Still, the white crow walks alongside him, acting as though she were an invisible sentry. 

He could fall asleep on Nishimura’s back easily, it’d be comfortable even with the bumping rhythm of his footsteps on the dirt path if it weren’t for the occasional stumble that kept him awake. It’s the quiet atmosphere that Takashi likes, warm breeze and for once nothing is chasing him. He’s used to the two of them being loud and boisterous, though Kitamoto is quieter without Nishimura. They’re never quite as quiet as this, Takashi thinks. Ringing in his pocket, Kitamoto’s phone interrupts their comfortable silence. He curses lowly and digs around to find it. 

“Damn, I forgot to tell Tanuma and Taki, they must still be searching everywhere for you,” he says, glancing back at Takashi as he answers the call. Without giving them a chance to say anything, Kitamoto cuts the other end of the line off, “Don’t worry guys, we found him.”

Buzzes sound from the speaker of the phone, maybe not but that’s what Takashi hears, they trail off when Kitamoto tiredly speaks, “Yeah, yes he’s fine. He sprained his ankle but Satoru is giving him a piggyback so it’s okay.”

Increasing in pitch and volume, the buzzes seem to shout worriedly. Kitamoto sighs just a little annoyed, “No, you do not need to come help. Just go home you guys.” 

He ends the call before they can say anything more, it’s not like there would be any point to them coming now, Takashi notes, they’re almost back to the Fujiwaras’ house. He half dreads what they’ll say when they arrive, he nervously fiddles with the bandages around his arms. 

“Relax Natsume, they’re not mad, just worried, okay?” Sometimes Nishimura really was like a mind reader, he continues down the street, simple words remaining just as simple even when they’re only around the corner from his house. 

Seeing his smile might have been more reassurance to Takashi, but the words are good enough. Exhaling slowly, Takashi calms himself and answers, “Okay,” as he watches Kitamoto knock on the door. 

Creaking loudly, the door is flung open by an anxious Touko without a moment’s delay. Her face lights up happily at the sight of the three of them before she hastily schools it into that of an angry mother. It drops when she steps aside and sees how timid Takashi looks, when she finally notes that for some reason Takashi isn’t walking for himself. Nishimura walks through the door and into the living room, sets him carefully down on the couch. The crow yokai follows them into the room, electing to remain just inside the doorway. Kitamoto lingers in the hallway with Touko, Takashi isn’t sure what they talk about but they wind up in the same room a minute later. 

“Takashi-kun! Don’t ever do that-” her scolding is interrupted when Shigeru bursts into the room.

He’s panting with his hands resting on his knees but he doesn’t stop to catch his breath, “I’ve looked all over town for him but I can’t find him.” Eyes scanning the room, he straightens upon sight of the three kids, “Oh, I guess they found him then.”

Facing the floor, Takashi keeps his eyes away from theirs, “I’m sorry for running away and worrying you both. I was just scared that you’d be mad that I broke them.”

Shigeru shakes his head at him and Touko crosses the room to crouch in front of him. She wipes away the tears from his eyes that he didn’t even know were falling as Kitamoto rubs soothing circles on his back. 

“Oh Takashi-kun, we’d never get mad at you for something like that. We’re not like that. It’s okay, it was an accident. Nyanko knocked a box off your desk, the bang startled us too. Neither of us blame you, okay?” she smiles kindly at him. 

Takashi is grateful that they’re so understanding, it’s relieving. He wonders if Kitamoto told her when he was out in the hall. Good, he thinks, he’d be too scared to admit it a second time anyway. Touko’s attention shifts to his swollen ankle, she gasps and calls to her husband to bring some ice for it. 

“Of course,” he says and nearly trips on Nyanko as he leaves the room when the cat sidles up to his legs in passing. 

Nyanko jumps up on to Takashi’s lap and settles there, curling up to sleep as though it was the safest place in the world. As Takashi closes his exhausted eyelids just for a minute and strokes the lucky cat that is meant to be his bodyguard, he considers that may be, right now, it is his safest place in the world. The crow spirit stands guard, his friends are either side and his relatives care, his cat is a source of warmth in his lap. There’s no way that he isn’t in the safest place in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ficlet at the request of a lovely friend of mine, I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> Please comment and leave feedback, it means the world to me!
> 
> (Also if you wanna request one yourself send me an ask on tumblr [@floweryfandomnerd](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/floweryfandomnerd) with characters and a prompt)


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